Archive

To help raise awareness of the upcoming COP21 climate conference in Paris, Transition Constantine organised in mid-November a screening of the film ‘This Changes Everything’ at the Tolmen Centre in Constantine.

The film is, of course, associated with the book of the same name by Naomi Klein, and it provides some intense coverage of various groups around the world on the front lines of ‘Blockadia’. From tar sand development in Canada, through gold mining in Greece, and coal power station development in India, the film exposed the impact of global corporations on communities, climate and the natural world.

As an event, it was well supported, with over 30 attending and many new faces in the audience.

On Tuesday 28th April the Constantine Community Land Trust will be holding the LAUNCH EVENT of the new organisation (and it will incorporate the AGM of the initial set-up organisation). For the new organisation, the meeting aims to:

Adopt a constitution

Elect a board of directors

Discuss prospective sites

Recruit new CLT members

The meeting will be held at the Tolmen Centre in Constantine, with doors opening at 7:00 pm for a start at 7:30 pm (drinks and nibbles available).

What would an election be without the village hustings? With the national election due in early May, members of Transition Constantine (working with other members of the local community) helped to organise an event at the Tolmen Centre to which all the candidates were invited. Rather to our surprise, all six of them agreed to come. Even more to our surprise, the audience was over 100 strong, filling the guild room of the Tolmen Centre to near capacity. The event was designed to follow the Radio 4 ‘Any Questions’ format, in which each candidate gives an answer to a question placed by a member of the audience. According to one of the candidates, Constantine was the only village in the Camborne & Redruth constituency to hold its own hustings.

As an enhancement to the recently re-equipped play area in Constantine, members of the group planted one sunny Saturday sixteen good-sized apple trees in clumps around the area. Hearts initially sank on being told the size of the hole that would be needed for each tree, but fortunately the soil proved to be quite easily dug (!). Some remarkable spade-work saw all the trees planted in a morning.

One of the group’s occasional activities is the screening of a film relevant to our interests and aims. In June 2014 we organised the showing of ‘The UK Gold’ – a documentary about the role of the UK (and the City of London in particular) in global tax dodging. According to The Guardian: “The kind of film to get the blood boiling and the steam hissing out of your ears – an ambitious and admirably clear assault.” I suspect our audience agreed with that assessment.

Members of the Transition group helped to revive the village newspaper when its longstanding editor was obliged to give up to health problems. It now has a new editorial and production team, but members of the Transition group help with the bimonthly ritual of the ‘stapling and folding party’. Some 750 copies are collated, stapled, folded and boxed, with the accompaniment of food, drink and much putting of the world to rights. New occupational heath problems sometimes surface – though I’m not sure that ‘stapler’s wrist’ has been fully characterised by medical science…

Not being a habitual Radio 3 listener, it was by chance earlier in the week that I heard the presenter, Sarah Walker, talking with Satish Kumar (interspersed with his music choices) during her ‘Essential Classics’ programme. Satish Kumar has been editor of ‘Resurgence’ magazine for decades. His presence on the programme was apparently associated with the International Day of Peace on Friday 21st September. He has been appearing on all the programmes this week, talking about his life and beliefs. Those local to Constantine may already have heard him speak at the ‘Gather’ festival last autumn at Goongillings. For anyone else who would like to hear him, the programmes are available on iPlayer:

Saturday 24th September saw a gathering of folk in the fields adjacent to Scot’s Quay to mark 45 years of Resurgence magazine and local support for the international 350.org event Moving Planet . In line with Satish Kumar’s famous multi-thousand mile walks in pursuit of peace – Transition Constantine organised a walk from the village down to Scot’s Quay – ably led by children from the school carrying flags they had made earlier in the week. The Gather event included a number of musicians and bands, tree listening, charcoal buying, natural paint making, and dance – all leading up to a session with Satish Kumar being interviewed by Leo Hickman of the Guardian – on Satish’s wide ranging and inspirational thoughts over the last 45 years. During the afternoon everyone took part in creating two large scale human banners for 350.org – shortly to appear on the Moving Planet website.

Al Gore is promoting a worldwide rolling 24 hour event on 17/18th September – tune in to the broadcast coming out of London. One of our local Climate Change scientists based at Tremough will be participating from the LSE. Information here…..